China will be disgraced by these Olympics.

”To pretend that these Games are primarily about the 100-meter dash, or an American swimmer who wants to win eight gold medals, or a glamorous Chinese hurdler would be incredibly obtuse.”—Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell.

I was in Havana a few years ago and was told to be aware that all my telephone calls and emails were being monitored. I could actually hear the click on the phone line. If you think you’ve got a bad job, try being the man or woman assigned to listen in on a sportswriter arguing with an editor over sentence construction and then complaining how the lobster wasn’t large enough at dinner the night before. What could be worse than that?

(ESPN hired a Cuban kid to act as a runner. He was invited to join a group from the network for dinner one night. Upon leaving the restaurant, he was slapped around and dragged away by cops. He explained the next day that he hadn’t been arrested, as it appeared. He’d only been detained for talking to foreigners. Nice country, huh?)

Anyway, the spy assigned to me didn’t have much work to do because the Cuban government scrambled my cell phone and jacked the price of a land line up so much that I couldn’t afford to spend more than a couple of minutes on the blower at a time.

Poor Peter Gammons. He’s addicted to the phone, but his ESPN producer told him to cool it because she only had so much money. She comes around the corner one afternoon and there’s Peter sneaking away listening to his voice mails. Only about 50 or 60 of them.

That was my only first-hand experience dealing with commies. Listening to my phone calls? How dumb are these people? I’m not smart enough to get my laptop turned on half the time, and they’re worrying I’m going to overthrow the Cuban government.

Havana could use some overthrowing. Once one of the world’s most beautiful cities, it’s a living, breathing testimony to the fact that Communism doesn’t work. Once beautiful homes are falling down. Sidewalks are impassable. People walk the streets with vacant expressions.

One afternoon, I watched as parents waited beneath a blazing sun for an hour or more to get their kids a small dish of ice cream. I must have had a dozen Cubans offer to let the gringo break in line. It was heart breaking on countless levels.

Anyway, I’m not in Beijing, but I have friends there now and other friends that were there earlier this year. It would be funny if it weren’t so very sad. Chinese officials are terrified of making a decision because every small dictator has a dictator over him. They’re apparently all afraid they’re going to make a decision that upsets someone, and I presume, gets them shot.

Baseball players were being followed earlier this year. Baseball players? Are you serious? I know baseball players, and if they were out on the town, it was in search of meat, potatoes and beer. These aren’t complicated people. The Chinese have nothing to fear.

Now the stories are about security detail following security detail. Don’t ask to get the thermostat adjusted in your work space. Don’t try to read the NY Times online. Sometimes it’s available. Sometimes it’s banned.

Another baseball story: a high-ranking MLB official was watching CNN in his hotel room and kept noticing the screen would occasionally go blank. Censorship in action.

If you think W. is a moron, if you think the Supreme Court is filled with leftists or rightists, if you’re disgusted with both Obama and McCain and Rush and Al Franken, pause today and be thankful. The alternative is much, much worse.

These Olympics are going to be an endless parade of stories that make the Chinese look bad. (Drayton McLane once told me he liked doing business with the Chinese because there was such an emphasis on keeping costs down. Like not having health-care plans. Gotta keep those costs low.)

Hey, no one told them to invite the world to their country.

(I love it when Peter Ueberroth tells others how to behave. Check out his history as baseball commissioner. This clown shouldn’t be telling any US athlete how to act. It’s incredible that the USOC would allow a guy like this in the front door, much less in a leadership position. Don’t worry, Peter. The collusion damages are paid off.)

Among the highlights:

 Two American and two British protesters slipped through a smothering Olympic security net, climbed a pair of lampposts and unfurled banners demanding freedom for Tibet near the new stadium where the Beijing Games are to open Friday. Washington Post

 Chinese officials apologized for the “beating of two Japanese journalists by police in western China,” but officials also “set new obstacles for news outlets wanting to report from Tiananmen Square in the latest sign of trouble for reporters covering the Olympics,” according to Dikky Sinn of the AP.

 The Beijing city government on its Web site said that Chinese and foreign journalists “who want to report and film in Tiananmen ‘are advised to make advanced appointments by phone,'” according to the Associated Press.

 ESPN Beijing Bureau Producer Arty Berko wrote under the header, “Running Into A Pre-Olympic Protest.” Berko was attempting to photograph the demonstration at the Bird’s Nest when “some of the policemen walked toward me and grabbed me by the arm. They were angry and aggressive while holding on to me, yelling in my face,” according to Sports Business Daily.

 The Chinese government yesterday revoked the visa of U.S. Gold Medal-winning speed skater and human rights group Team Darfur co-Founder Joey Cheek, The Washington Post reported.

 The Chinese government two weeks ago denied the visa of former Olympian Kendra Zanotto, who was to report on the Games for the Olympic News Service, reportedly because of her ties to Team Darfur, according to Sports Business Daily.

 As Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins writes, ”The only vision of the world that’s permitted is their own, judging by the fact that [Cheek] was denied admittance to these Summer Games for the following offense: He spoke.”

 The Chicago Tribune’s Philip Hersh wrote that the denial of Cheek’s visa is “another sign of China’s disdain for human rights and fair play, both alleged cornerstones of the Olympic Charter. And another sign of the shame the [IOC’s] leadership has brought on itself and the upcoming Summer Games by not holding this repressive government accountable for promises of openness it made” when it awarded Beijing the event in 2001.

 Ron Judd of the Seattle Times adds: “So this is how it’s going to go. The Chinese government will simply stonewall and deny complaints about any controversial facets of ‘its’ Olympics … and the IOC will plead impotence.”